Aegilops markgrafii is a useful source of genes encoding both resistance to biotic stress and high seed lysine content. Bread wheat/Ae. markgrafii introgression lines expressing leaf rust resistance were developed from a cross between a leaf rust-resistant Ae.markgrafii accession and the susceptible bread wheat cultivar ‘Alcedo’. The content of introgressed segments present in five sister introgression lines was assessed with the help of chromosome-specific simple sequence repeats (SSRs). One of the lines was used as a parent of a 140 individual F2 mapping population, by crossing with the leaf rust-susceptible bread wheat cv. ‘Borenos’. The population was tested for susceptibility or resistance to leaf rust, and linkage analysis indicated the presence of a quantitative trait locus (QLr.ipk-2A) originating from the Ae. markgrafii parent, mapping to the distal segment of chromosome arm 2AS.
